1954

Once upon a time, long ago Charlie J. "Jay" Urstadt '49 coached the pea green '54 freshman swimming team. One of his brighter prospects was a young Evanston, Illinois, high school swimming ace and future varsity and All American (1993, 60-64 age group) by the name of Steve Mullins. Under Jay's tutelage Steve excelled at long-distance swimming. Fast-forward the clock 58 years to the World Masters Championships in Perth, Australia, in April, when 10 percent of th 12,000 Masters swimmers registered in th meet were over the age of 70. Here's what Ja wrote: "As I was walking by the indoor pool I saw 'Steve Mullins' on the bulletin boar in Lane 8. He was in the men's 800-mete freestyle race and was in sixth place going into the last turn. The swimmer in Lane 7, or Steve's left, was about five seconds ahead him coming out of the turn. But in the las 25 yards Steve put on a heroic burst of speec at the finish and nosed out his competitor b .14 seconds to take the fifth-place medal. I was one of the most exciting finishes I hav ever seen and it was great to see Steve swin his heart out for the last few yards. It was Dartmouth win. In addition, Steve won three other medals during the competition."

Hats off to '54 Dartmouth College Fund co-chairs Don Berlin and Rick Hartman—and to the 81.8 percent of classmates who contributed (as of June 23)—exceeding our goal by 13 percent and earning the class of 1954 a solid second place in the 2008 DCF Green Derby, Peter Kenyon reports that the special projects committee concluded its intern selection work at the May meeting with the naming of four outstanding student recipients as follows: Tucker Foundation, J. Watson Sallay '08 in honor of Kevin I. Sullivan; Rockefeller Foundation, Jennifer Bandy '09 in honor of Rodman C. Rockefeller; the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding, Andrew Young '09 in honor of Dean F. Berry; and Dartmouth Partners in Community Service, Diana Jih '08 in honor of George D. Voss. According to class president Jay Davis, "These internships serve one of the highest priorities for Dartmouth students today: out-of-classroom learning. For example, one of our new '54 interns is going to Tanzania to be trained in the repair of medical equipment; another is going to Chicago to work on creating fair and sustainable food systems; another—a government major—is going to Washington, D.C., to work at the State Department." In addition to the $3,000 grant per intern, the class supports the recruitment of a student-athlete with an additional $1,OOO grant, thereby raising our annual funding commitment to a total of $13,000. All classmates are urged to help '54 maintain its leadership position in providing student internships by adding voluntary contributions to annual dues payments.

Noted with sadness is the death on April 4 of Donald Dorsey McCuaig of heart failure (see obituary section). The class sends its condolences to Don's family.

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